'Mate's book will make you examine your behaviour in a new light' Guardian 'bold, wise and deeply moral. [Mate] is a healer to be cherished' Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine Children take their lead from their friends: being 'cool' matters more than anything else. Shaping values, identity and codes of behaviour, peer groups are often far more influential than parents. But this situation is far from natural, and it can be dangerous - it undermines family cohesion, interferes with healthy development, and fosters a hostile and sexualized youth culture. Children end up becoming conformist, anxious and alienated. In Hold on to Your Kids, acclaimed physician and bestselling author Gabor Mate joins forces with Gordon Neufeld, a psychologist with a reputation for penetrating to the heart of complex parenting. Together they pinpoint the causes of this breakdown and offer practical advice on how to 'reattach' to sons and daughters, establish the hierarchy at home, make children feel safe and understood, and earn back your children's loyalty and love. This updated edition also addresses the unprecedented parenting challenges posed by the rise of digital devices and social media. By helping to reawaken our instincts, Mate and Neufeld empower parents to be what nature intended: a true source of contact, security and warmth for their children.

A psychologist with a reputation for penetrating to the heart of complex parenting issues joins forces with a physician and bestselling author to tackle one of the most disturbing and misunderstood trends of our time -- peers replacing parents in the lives of our children.
Dr. Neufeld has dubbed this phenomenon peer orientation, which refers to the tendency of children and youth to look to their peers for direction: for a sense of right and wrong, for values, identity and codes of behaviour. But peer orientation undermines family cohesion, poisons the school atmosphere, and fosters an aggressively hostile and sexualized youth culture. It provides a powerful explanation for schoolyard bullying and youth violence; its effects are painfully evident in the context of teenage gangs and criminal activity, in tragedies such as in Littleton, Colorado; Tabor, Alberta and Victoria, B.C. It is an escalating trend that has never been adequately described or contested until Hold On to Your Kids. Once understood, it becomes self-evident -- as do the solutions.
Hold On to Your Kids will restore parenting to its natural intuitive basis and the parent-child relationship to its rightful preeminence. The concepts, principles and practical advice contained in Hold On to Your Kids will empower parents to satisfy their children's inborn need to find direction by turning towards a source of authority, contact and warmth.

"Something has changed. One can sense it, one can feel it, just not find the words for it. Children are not quite the same as we remember being. They seem less likely to take their cues from adults, less inclined to please those in charge, less afraid of getting into trouble. Parenting, too, seems to have changed. Our parents seemed more confident, more certain of themselves and had more impact on us, for better or for worse. For many, parenting does not feel natural. Adults through the ages have complained about children being less respectful of their elders and more difficult to manage than preceding generations, but could it be that this time it is for real?" -- from Hold On to Your Kids

"From the Hardcover edition."

"Teenagers" reimagines the way people think about adolescents. No longer society's scourge and scapegoat, the teenager emerges from David Bainbridge's fascinating study as an awe-inspiring natural phenomenon that evokes reverence and wonder. Bainbridge, a veterinarian and anatomist, suggests that the second decade is the most important in the human lifecycle. In lively prose, he explains the science behind the changes that occur both on the surface of the teenage body and deep within the teenage brain, from lanky limbs and bad skin to falling in love, sleeping till noon, and the irresistible allure of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. Observed through a scientific lens, these bizarre biological transformations and behavioral anomalies snap into focus, as not only a beautifully choreographed sequence of steps on the path to adulthood, but also as a key evolutionary factor in the success of the species.